The sorrows & disappointments Christianity brought on the early Igbo people, By Anayo M. Nwosu

Ifefooku, Chukwuchem and Adibe congregated under the tall Akpu tree very close to the entrance of the Ogwugwu shrine but within the trading zone of the Eke market in Otolo Nnewi. Each had on his hand, a hornful of palm wine Mazi Ifefooku had purchased from Nwabueze the wine tapper, in the market.

The trio were drinking partners who usually met at the palm wine section of the Eke Ogwugwu, every Eke market day (which was usually four days apart) to keep abreast with the happenings in the town.

Men usually would arrive the market with their own "Mpata" (i.e. small carved wooden stool) and "Mpi atu" (i.e a cup made from the horn of a buffalo).

They were all farmers.

Otolo Nnewi men by an edict, didn't usually go to farms on Eke market days but would bring farm produce for sale to the market.

Anyone who had nothing to sell would have something to buy as no man was deemed self sufficient. Women too, did the same.

Settled men like Ifefooku, Chukwuchem and Adibe would let their wives do the selling and buying of food items in the market while they handled sales of goats, sheep and cattle which transactions ended before 12 noon.

Somebody who did not know the market dynamics of the people would think that  men in the market  were loafers and would be tempted to eulogize the women for being more hard working. But, as in every sphere of life, the business owners or the bosses appear less busy.

The rave in the town within the period under consideration was the total humiliation of the Nnewi deities by the God of the whiteman at Akwu Udo, Nweke and Egbo. The defeat had made many high ranking citizens of Nnewi to defect to the new christian religion.

When Nnewi town surrendered to the British colonial power in 1903 without a fight, the leaders of the town had trusted in the abilities of their deities to revenge and to rout the Whiteman but that was not the case.

Full of confidence of someone whose gun was loaded, Nnewi leaders were happy to donate the very evil forests they believed housed thousands demons to the whiteman to build his own shrine or church and a dwelling place.

The stories from the evil forests of Akwu Udo, Akwu Nweke and Akwu Egbo were the same: the whiteman with his renegade Igbo converts were singing some indiscernible songs as they cleared the forests, hoisted their cross, built a shrine they called churches and surprisingly some dwelling places right inside the revered evil forests.

It was more than 7 weeks (i.e. 4x7=28 days) after the strangers were given the poisonous  gifts of the evil forests and nothing happened.

The whiteman was unhurt, and the deities didn't even hurt his black co-conspirators.  This was shocking to all the elders of the town and the chief priests of the deities that owned the evil forests.

Before now, nobody had ever slept in the evil forest in Nnewi and woken up alive.

"Nji nji ejie!" meaning "Darkness has befallen the land!"

Who would blame the new converts especially the slaves and the devotees of the defeated deities as they trooped in droves to the new and obviously more powerful religion?

The new religion came with a lot of tantalizers.

They were distributing clothes and foot wears that made human legs have one big toe.

There were a greater number of converts during the Harmattan season than during the Dry and Rainy seasons as many people especially the women were attracted by the magical soothing sweaters massively distributed by the new religion.

They didn't need to stay close to fire to fight the cold of harmattan.

It was a chaos in Nnewi but common sense had to reign.

Ezeodumegwu the regent of Nnewi and Otolo at that time, had to summon all the "umunwoke nile kwu amu" or full grown men in Otolo to a meeting to bring an order to the way the people migrated to the new religion.

He had gathered that even though the whitemen were worshipping the same God that they had different denominations. He advised all clan heads to ensure that the interested converts be shared in between the two leading denominations.

Starting from his household, he shared the willing converts equally to those that worshipped Jesus at Akwu Udo (i.e Anglicans) and the other to the group that worshipped Jesu at Akwu Nweke (i.e Catholics)

Each man was enjoined to do same as it was not good to put all eggs in one basket.

Everybody agreed that Jesus and Jesu were both powerful considering their humiliation of the Udo, Egbo and Nweke deities. The hitherto powerful deities didn't do nothing as their evil forests were being cleared and inhabited by strangers.

But not some of the new converts were impressed with the new religion.

On one fateful Eke market day that fell on a Sunday, Mazi Adibe  was too surprised to see his cousin Ifefooku and his friend, Chukwuchem in the market. They were supposed to have gone to church but they were in the market before him.

"Why didn't you people go to church today", he mischievously asked as if he had not heard from the grapevine that they had backslidden.

Ifefooku was the first to speak. "Nnaa, gbalu nkwu ñuo" meaning "Bros, pour palm wine into your cup and drink"

"The sweet sound of the bitter kola to the ears didn't translate to sweetness in the mouth. I don't think I can fit into that kind of religion.

"My only regret is the loss of my big plantain I was tricked to donate to the whiteman called Fada as offering. That was the first fruit of that giant yielding plantain I traveled to Omambala to buy its suckers. The first fruit of this plantain was so big to be carried on a shoulder by one man.

"The catechist of our church at Akwunweke upon a visit to my house one evening, saw the matured plantain in my compound and beseeched me to offer the fruit to Jesu.

"He had assured me that if I donated something I valued so much that the "ama afo" (i.e. chronic ulcer) which causes me a excruciating pain in my stomach would be cured.

"It is now seven weeks and I feel that the pain has even increased.

"Does it mean that the plantain did not get to Jesu or that the Father and the catechist didn't tell Jesu the actual owner of the plantain sacrifice?

"I was particularly incensed by the catechist who asked me, upon my enquiry to be patient, that sometimes it took Jesu many months to answer prayers. I have to count my losses and return to the "igu muo" or the traditional worship I understand", Mazi Ifefooku concluded.

Chukwuchem's account was stunning.

He said that he converted to Uka Fada i.e. Catholicism a month after the whiteman and his converts successfully cleared the revered evil forest of Nweke (known as Akwunweke) to erect their church and a dwelling place.

"We were baptized and were told of one great feast called "holy communion" and all of us were expecting a real feast until the day Fada i.e. the reverend father arrived from Onitsha for the ceremony.

"Many of us were tasked to bring to the church a day before, a big bundle of firewood by "onye nkuzi uka" or catechist and we thought that the firewood was to be used to cook the feast food until the ceremony began.

"The Fada rather used words of mouth to cook the food and then started putting small chunk of white biscuit, not bigger than a flake of an abacha or sliced cassava tapioca into our tongues. He didn't give anyone more than one slice.

"My disappointment was accentuated when the whiteman returned to his table to now eat the remainder of the biscuits and drank his wine alone without giving anymore to the catechist; not even a cup of wine.

"That,  to me was very selfish. I did not tell anyone my feeling but I decided right there in the church to withdraw my membership.

"Nduka my cousin later told me that he too, didn't leave the church that day without collecting his own firewood bundle.

"He had noticed that Fada didn't return to Onitsha with any firewood and had suspected that the catechist made us bring the firewood for his own use.

"I had never been hungrier as I was that feast day as I thought that we were going to be fed the way we do during traditional marriage ceremonies or during a feast of Ozo title taking", Mazi Chukwuchem said with forlorn face.

Mazi Adibe felt justified that he did not join the bandwagon of new christian converts. Things to him, were happening too fast to be real. He was of the opinion that one should not test a new river with two legs.

As a wise man, Adibe allowed his wife and three of his six children to convert to the new religion while he and the rest remained in the religion of his ancestors.

In his words "ahoro umumu egbuo ichi,ahoro ndi ozo chie ozo" meaning "one needs to diversify his risks and should not put all his eggs in one basket".

Who would he leave the priesthood of Nzukpe to?

The priesthood that had assured him enough money, yam and  loads of chicken, goat and even cow meat from supplicants and thanks givers to Uzukpe deity for one favour or a the other.

At the Uzukpe shrine or Okwu Uzukpe, Mazi Adibe was not only the "Fada" or the priest but a generous one for that matter, because the worshippers at the shrine got more share of the sacrificial meat or food than what those in the new religion get during their own feast or holy communion.

That was the mentality of Nnewi elders in beginning of the 20th century until many of their children got enrolled in schools and were taught the meaning and the ways of the white man.

Over time, the hardliners and those very faithful to the culture and religion their ancestors bequeathed to them, started dying.

It was not a very smooth experience for the missionaries and those who took the Igbo hinterlands by storm and disrupted the way of life of a people and also destroyed their ways of worship.